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New MacBook Air fails to get the most of its Apple M4 GPU in early benchmark leaks

Apple is expected to update the MacBook Air this spring. (Image source: Apple)
Apple is expected to update the MacBook Air this spring. (Image source: Apple)
The next MacBook Air 13 has surfaced in early benchmark leaks sporting a 10-core version of Apple's M4 chipset. While the Mac16,12 outperforms its M3-based predecessor, it also falls short of expectations in OpenCL and Metal benchmarks at this stage.

Apple is expected to refresh the MacBook Air 13 and MacBook Air 15 (curr. $1,099 on Amazon) by the spring, with March touted as a possible release month. To that end, the unreleased 'Mac16,12' has appeared on Geekbench running macOS Sequoia 15.2. Incidentally, this is the same version of macOS that added references to Apple's forthcoming MacBook Air releases.

Geekbench does not name the Mac in question by its retail name. Nonetheless, macOS Sequoia 15.2 confirmed in December that Mac16,12 relates to the next MacBook Air 13. By contrast, 'Mac16,13' is the model number for the MacBook Air 15.

The two Geekbench listings that have surfaced so far indicate that Apple has equipped the new MacBook Air with the 10-core version of its Apple M4 SoC rather than its 8- or 9-core variants. The pair also suggest that the fanless design may hold back GPU performance in some areas.

As always, we would recommend taking early benchmark results with a healthy amount of scepticism for the time being. With that being said, the MacBook Air 13 benchmarked falls about 5% short of the median Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Metal results we achieved so far when benchmarking the M4 versions of the Mac mini and MacBook Pro 14.

By contrast, we did not observe any tangible performance differences when testing the M3 versions of the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. Additionally, only a circa 10% gap exists between the M3 and M4 in GPU benchmarks. Thus, we suspect that the M4 and its 10-core GPU may fare better in a fanless environment than the benchmark results below suggest.

(Image source: Geekbench)
(Image source: Geekbench)
(Image source: Geekbench)
(Image source: Geekbench)

Source(s)

Geekbench (1) (2) via XPertPick

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2025 02 > New MacBook Air fails to get the most of its Apple M4 GPU in early benchmark leaks
Alex Alderson, 2025-02-20 (Update: 2025-02-20)